The mobile advertising market will grow by 90 per cent to nearly £1bn in 2013
as mobile internet use booms.

The UK's market for mobile advertising is predicted to increase significantly from £526m spent last year, as technology companies adjust to widespread use of mobiles for online activity.

Smartphones are used proportionally more for purchases in Britain than anywhere else worldwide, and the growth in mobile advertising spending will help drive digital advertising, according to eMarketer.

Clark Fredricksen, vice-president of communications at eMarketer said: "On a broad level, British consumers are adapting to smartphones and tablets faster than expected.

"As more consumers spend more time on their phones and increase the amount of money they spend on phones and tablets, that audience becomes increasingly valuable to advertisers."

Companies will invest in advertisements for mobile display formats as consumers spend more time on their phones, with mobile expected to overtake fixed internet by 2014, according to consultancy IDATE.

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Mr Fredericksen said direct response advertisers, who hope consumers will buy a product after clicking on an advertisement or picture, would benefit particularly well from the development.

He said: "The advertising eco system has been forced to evolve to accommodate consumers. Many retailers didn't even have a strong mobile website."

Other major technology companies, such as Google, Facebook and Twitter, have also invested significantly in improving their mobile platforms.

Oli Roxburgh, Managing Director of Mobile 5, a mobile creative agency said: "Not only have we witnessed an explosion in mobile advertising but we’ve seen numerous international brands turning to us for mobile specific creative.

"It's not about more adverts, it's probably about the sophistication and quality of them, mainly because of the booming smartphone and tablet sales and the features that you can now include within your adverts.

"The use of GPS, the use of touch, the use of the accelerometer – all of these things haven't been possible in any other medium but you can now use them within your mobile advertising.

"Retail is certainly an area that is pretty prevalent around driving people either to the e-commerce or driving people into store, the advent of things like passbook from Apple, enabling people to get a voucher on their phone and then redeem it in stores."

Forecasts from eMarketer show that digital advertising spending will rise 12 per cent from 2012 to 2013, reaching £6.1bn this year. And the growth is expected to continue further, climbing to £7bn by 2015 and £8bn by 2017.

Search is predicted to make up half of investments in mobile and online advertising by 2016, while display and digital advertising spending is growing rapidly.